HAVE YOURSELF A

Saturday 12th December 1999

At some point, in true High Fidelity style, we had a top five list of bands we absolutely had to see. The Manic Street Preachers were pretty much at the top of the list. We tried to get tickets to their Dundee gig but they were sold out. One fine day in a caravan on top of a nuclear bunker in Fife, we were phoning the Melody Maker ticket line for the Bernard Butler gig in Aberdeen, and as an off chance asked about Manics tickets in Glasgow. Hurrah! They had some left!! Standing too! Not actually considering how we were going to get to Glasgow or indeed, get out of Glasgow again - mere technicalities - we went for it. Well, you would.

A couple of months later, our heroes find themselves at Caroline's long suffering parents in Stirling. After a lovely day of decorating a Christmas tree with the nativity and wee baby Jesus and the holy light bulb, the girls get a lift from Caroline's dad to the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre. Being in need of nourishment the girls first deposit various layers of clothing in the cloakroom (gigging tip: put your clothes inside each other and only pay one fee!) and head for the hotdog stand. A brief explanation of the hotdog stand. A very sweet guy was stood behind  a small trolley which contained the following items: hot dog sausages. Bread buns. A sign saying 'hot dogs 2 pounds'. That's it and that's all. So when the wee lad looked at Caroline and asked what he could get her, and Caroline managed to keep a perfectly straight face and say 'I'll have a hot dog then please', Sharon was in an immense amount of pain trying not to laugh. When he proceeded to say to Sharon 'and yourself?' she nearly cried. 'Aww bless' of the night #1.

Queuing up to get in, the girls realise they are the oldest people there by a mile. No offence at all to any Manics fans anywhere (we love them too) but most of those kids were not old enough to have even heard of  Generation Terrorists. Of course, you could look through either of our record collections and find bands you could say that about. So the lesson here is that music is not age dependent! Still, we were starting to feel under-dressed without the feather boas and the leopard skin clothing the young 'uns are wearing. Once in the hall we discover that there ARE people that have made it past their teenage years, but they are all sensible and have seated tickets. PAH! You are never too old to mosh!

Aww Bless of the night #2: A wee lad dressed in a Hamilton Academicals shirt, who had come to the gig straight from a football game, and had been given his Manics ticket for a Christmas present, declared to Caroline and Sharon that he felt 'very old here'. Erm? Said Sharon, just precisely how old are you? '17' he said proudly. Now, bear in mind it was dark in the hall...but we still saw him turn white when we informed him of our ages. Fortunately, the support band Catatonia came on and spared him from any further embarrassment. Neither of us would have made any effort to actually see Catatonia as a headlining band, but to be fair, they give a good show and get the crowd hyper. It was starting to get a little crowded at the front of the stage, and to avoid any rib crushing moments we moved back a few rows. Our little Hamilton Accies fan had lost his friends and so stuck with us. It's always nice to adopt people at gigs.

The Manics finally come on, and they do not disappoint. Little James battling on despite having a cold gets the Awww Bless of the night #3. There's not enough aww blesses in the world to cover his acoustic version of Wham's Last Christmas. So we mosh away quite merrily to all of our favourites (which are, well, all of the songs) and the wee lad we have adopted is truly stunned by how much energy us positively old people have. During 'Roses in the Hospital', we are screaming the words (it's cathartic, no, really), and after yelling 'we don't want your f^%&ing love' Caroline turns to Sharon and in perfectly normal voice says 'I always wanted to do that', then turns back to the stage and continues moshing. Priceless. Now here's the thing about the Manics. They are ickle and Welsh and quite adorable. They write fantastic songs and James astounds you at every turn with his ability to sing perfect melodies and play complex guitar parts all at once. And don't you just want to ruffle Sean's hair? Ok, that was several things. But the one thing is this: they don't do encores. This means you get at least one extra song in the time most bands are sat backstage massaging their egos listening to you scream for their return. We love the Manics.

So the gig ends and the queue for the cloakroom starts. It's long. Fortunately the line is peppered with coke machines, and we drain them of soft drinks in attempt to rehydrate from a heavy nights moshing. We are now well and truly late for our lift back to Stirling. By the time we get out, hundreds of teenagers are heading off into Glasgow and we are met by Caroline's worried looking dad. Somehow, there's a whole age reversal thing going on there...the message from this? Lifts home are not age dependent.......